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Monday, 5 June 2017

Hallam Hotel

William and Mary Hallam purchased the 50 acres (20 hectares) of land in 1856 on the corner of the Gippsland Road (Princes Highway) and Hallam Road. They established a store and a Post Office and the store was 'the genesis of the hotel' as Jean Uhl says in her book Call back Yesterday: Eumemmerring Parish. I do not know when the Hallams were granted the licence but there is an article in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal of May 21, 1879 when Mr W. Hallam of Eumemmerring was charged in the Dandenong Police Court with 'not having a light outside his licenced house' (you can read the article here) so it was clearly operating as a hotel then. The Hallam Hotel website says it started in 1872 and this seems to be the general consensus from newspapers articles published on the history of the hotel in 1970s and 1980s, and I am not saying that this date is incorrect, but I can't find any evidence to support it.

The Hallams sold their land to Edmund Uren, in 1885. This is confirmed by the following two articles in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal of March 11, 1885.

Deborah Stephan, in her booklet, Hallam 1830-1930, wrote this about Edmund Uren, who had purchased Hallam's property for 2,100 pounds - Uren was a Cornishman who arrived in Australia in 1856 and went into copper mining on the Buninyong district (Ballarat). He served three years on the Borough Council, one year as Mayor of Buninyong and three years as a member of the Ballarat Mining Board. On November 24 1886 Uren applied for a certificate authorising the issue of a victuallar's licence for premises situate at Eumemmerring, 'containing six rooms exclusive of those required for the use of my family and servants'. In June 1892 he described himself as the licensed victualler of Hallam's Hotel, Hallam Road near Dandenong, when conveying the property to his wife Elizabeth.

I don't know why he had to apply for a victuallers licence as he already had one, but I suspect that he might have rebuilt the building as by 1886 the original premises would have been close to 30 years old. You can see in the newspaper report, above, that the hotel was referred to as the Eumemmerring Hotel - Jean Uhl says that the hotel had a variety of names including Hallam's Eumemmerring Hotel, Uren's Hallam Hotel, Uren's Hotel Eumemmerring and Hallam's Road Hotel.

Edmund Uren died in July 1892 and his wife, Elizabeth, took over the licence. Elizabeth operated the hotel until June 1898 when 'Miss Clarkson was installed there' as the South Bourke and Mornington Journal said. Ada Jane Clarkson owned the Hotel until March 1913. It then had a succession of licensees including Eliza Bonnell, Sarah Wright and Mary Thomas who took over in 1921.

Hallam Hotel, before the 1930s remodelling

The Hotel started it's life as a one storey building and The Age reported on October 28, 1930 that existing building was to be modernised and extended.

The new hotel was opened in March the next year as the the Dandenong Journal of March 12, 1931 reported The new hotel has been completed; a handsome two story building, which has taken the place of the old hostel of the overlanding days.